Key ideas in linguistics

Aims

Aims

In this module, students will gain an overview of some key ideas in linguistic research from the 20th century and beyond.  

One aim is to expose students to a wider range of literature in Linguistics as a whole than they were exposed to in the core subjects studied in the Autumn term.

The module aims to demonstrate by appeal to the research studied how, by virtue of perspicuous presentation, good research can be made accessible to audiences with relatively non-specialised background.

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• understand the linguistic theories presented in the research papers studied;
• understand why they became important to the field;
• understand how different types of evidence can be used to support arguments for different theoretical postitions;
• evaluate competing interpretations of evidence and synthesise the ideas of others;
• develop a hypothesis from the predictions of a theory or model;
• demonstrate the ability to design a research project.